{"id":95853,"date":"2025-12-15T23:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/95853\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T23:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:01:07","slug":"preliminary-hearing-delayed-for-adult-defendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/95853\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary hearing delayed for adult defendants"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 A key hearing to assess criminal charges for three adults accused of helping a teen suspect flee the infamous Black Friday shooting<\/a> at Westfield Valley Fair mall has been pushed to the new year.<\/p>\n

The continuance, granted Monday by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Williams, means that a preliminary examination for the trio is now scheduled for Jan. 12. That\u2019s when the court will review evidence and testimony, then decide if the charges are strong enough to proceed toward trial.<\/p>\n

\"FromFrom left, Allana Nevaeh Murillo, 21, Christian Joel Duran, 20, and Evan John Moniz, 33, all from San Jose, appear in court to answer for a charge of being an accessory in a Nov. 28, 2025 shooting at Westfield Valley Fair mall at the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. The shooting injured three people, allegedly at the hands of a 17-year-old boy who has been charged with attempted murder. (Nhat V. Meyer\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Jose residents Christian Joel Duran, 20, Evan John Moniz, 33, and Allana Nevaeh Murillo, 21, have each been charged with being a felony accessory in the Nov. 28 alleged gang-motivated shooting that wounded a 28-year-old man and two bystanders<\/a>, an 18-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl, and sent the mall into a mass panic on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.<\/p>\n

All three were arraigned Dec. 3 and pleaded not guilty; Moniz and Murillo were released from jail custody after posting $100,000 and $125,000 bail, respectively. Duran is also out of jail but under home detention.<\/p>\n

The shooting suspect, a 17-year-old boy who is Duran\u2019s brother, has been charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon<\/a> causing great bodily injury, and is currently being prosecuted in juvenile court. He briefly appeared in court Monday, and was ordered to return to court Feb. 3.<\/p>\n

A judge has yet to rule on a request by the district attorney\u2019s office to transfer the teen\u2019s case to adult court, which would expose him to a lengthy prison sentence if he is convicted.<\/p>\n

At the hearing for the adult defendants, Williams approved a request by Deputy District Attorney Daisy Altamore to postpone the preliminary examination, on account of a lead San Jose police detective becoming unexpectedly unavailable because of an unspecified personal matter.<\/p>\n

Deputy Public Defender Will Brotherson, representing Duran, objected to the prosecution\u2019s request, referencing how Altamore had sought \u2014 unsuccessfully \u2014 to have the court order the defendants\u2019 pretrial jailing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not conscionable they would make that request (with) the understanding they would not be ready,\u201d Brotherson said, referring to the speedy trial rights invoked by the defendants. \u201cThey knew the preliminary hearing would be set within 10 days when they were advocating for pretrial detention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense attorneys Margaret Trask, who is representing Moniz, and Cody Salfen, representing Murillo, echoed Brotherson\u2019s position and contended that another investigator could present evidence at the hearing.<\/p>\n

Williams responded by emphasizing that none of the defendants are in jail, and that Altamore has the right to have the lead detective help make their case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe People have stated good cause,\u201d Williams said, adding that the prosecution is \u201callowed to make the presentation it chooses to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge also denied a request by Brotherson to release Duran from home detention.<\/p>\n

The Black Friday shooting was reported around 5:35 p.m.<\/a> on a second-floor walkway near the Macy\u2019s women\u2019s store on the San Jose side of the mall, which also sits in Santa Clara jurisdiction. According to a San Jose police investigation, the teen defendant and three adult defendants \u2014 with Murillo pushing her and Duran\u2019s young child in a stroller \u2014 arrived at the mall wearing red clothing and encountered a group of men wearing blue, who they associated with a rival street gang.<\/p>\n

A brief verbal altercation occurred before the teen pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired six shots, hitting the 28-year-old male victim in the chest and inflicting leg wounds to the two female bystanders. After the defendants were arrested two days later, authorities revealed that the boy accused of the shooting was on probation after being arrested and charged with carrying a concealed gun in February; the charge was suspended with a deferred entry of judgment contingent on him completing court-ordered rehabilitation requirements.<\/p>\n

Duran and Murillo were already facing felony charges of assault causing great bodily injury for their alleged involvement in an Aug. 7, 2023 gang-related fight at James Lick High School, where they allegedly accompanied the teen shooting suspect to confront and fight a rival student. Murillo is accused of severely assaulting a teacher in the aftermath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 A key hearing to assess criminal charges for three adults accused of helping a teen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[27277,3622,52630,7359,3790,88,90,89,198,135,43575],"class_list":["post-95853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-black-friday","tag-court","tag-defendants","tag-district-attorney","tag-preliminary-hearing","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-shooting","tag-valley-fair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}